gravedo

Forms

gravēdō f (genitive gravēdinis); third declension^[1] The spelling gravīdō also occurs, in painted inscriptions at Pompeii and in some manuscripts.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin gravis (“heavy”) + -ēdō.^[2][1][4] The TLL compares gravēscō (“to grow heavy”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Plautus' Asinaria, where she is to pretend that a cold is running from her nose (simulet quasi gravedo profluat).^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In Cicero's letters, Catullus and Celsus it is a cold in the head or catarrh.^[5][6] Pliny the Elder uses it more generally of a heavy, oppressive feeling, such as heaviness of the head after drinking.^[2][5] Nemesianus applies it to pregnancy,^[5][6] and Augustine uses it figuratively.^[6]

In Medieval Latin it meant weight or heaviness, and then an oppressive levy or a wrong done to someone.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a running cold.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions a cold in his letters to Atticus.^[5][6][4]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus treats it as a medical complaint, catarrh.^[6][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of heaviness in the head.^[2][4]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it figuratively.^[6][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) A cold in the head, catarrh.^[2][5]
2. A heavy, oppressive feeling, heaviness.^[2][6]
3. Pregnancy.^[5][6]
4. (Medieval Latin) An oppressive levy; a wrong, oppression.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill